


The Family Business

by fujiidom



Series: Stacks On Stacks On Stacks [3]
Category: Two of a Kind
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, F/M, Friedrich Nietzsche - Freeform, Gen, Inner Dialogue, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 02:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/pseuds/fujiidom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not Carrie's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellolamppost17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellolamppost17/gifts).



The problem with getting involved with a family bookstore is that at the end of the day, you’re getting involved with the family that runs it.

Of course you could keep things professional and leave it at the door, but then you’re not Carrie. And Carrie’s pretty okay, if you ask her, so it’s not the end of the world. Having friends, sharing memories, making out with your boss.

She was real dumb to think that she could be around a strong, together, handsome guy like Kevin for a month without making a move. But to try and go several months? A whole year?

If you take a few giant steps back, Carrie’s actually quite impressed with her restraint all things considered. If this were her even five years before, she would’ve been making out with him while he was quoting some poet who died forever ago, while they were restacking the Classics section over morning coffee.

Who quotes poetry at six in the morning, anyway? How dare he?

His daughters do work there and have maybe grown to see her as a role model. So hopefully finally giving in and closing the distance between yet another of their awkwardly close and serious and kinetic conversations wouldn’t totally ruin that, but really isn’t it saying something that she doesn’t care. Well, of course she cares about their feelings and their sad faces, if that is how they’d react, which she’s not convinced they would, but it’s more than that. 

Sure, she loves the girls like sisters, daughters, even, but she’s not the type of person that would willingly risk that kind of relationship if it weren’t for something better. Better for all of them.

Couldn’t he just be a terrible kisser? Would that have been too much to ask? Husband takes over late wife’s bookstore, leaving behind a successful, decorated career as a professor to keep the shop afloat. Maintains good looks well into his thirties and can name every element on the periodic table. (She wasn’t aware that last thing was even a _thing_ with her, until Kevin. But hot damn is it ever.) Why does he get to be great at kissing too? Isn’t there supposed to be that one thing that makes the relationship doomed to fail?

That’s all Carrie knows about relationships. Is how great she is at finding that one thing, that one opportunity to shoot herself in the romantic foot and ruin a good thing before it’s even really begun. Maybe it should’ve been a warning sign that her handful of dates with Kevin’s younger brother, knowing Kevin was that thing. At the time she thought it meant that she was just afraid of ruining her job and the nights she spent reading Harry Potter out loud to the girls and watching their eyes light up when the arcs bled into one another as they twisted up and down.

But then she kisses Kevin. She doesn’t even go on her tip toes, like she maybe once or twice, figured she’ll have to do, given his height. He swoops down and he’s everywhere on her level. Meeting her there and then just being great at it and stuff, the jerk. 

She’s ready to throw away years of making herself a part of this family. The Burke Family Books family. Until then, she’s actually kind of stupidly already thought of herself as part of it. Then suddenly, as quickly as she pulls back and runs away from it and tries to think about what the hell just happened, she feels miles away.

She’s never felt lonelier. She comes into work the next day, extra early, thinking over whether she should just leave a resignation note on the front desk and lock back up. Leave a good enough thing behind and not trash the memory further.

When she pulls off her jacket and walks over to the register, she sees a book. Nietzsche, the book they spent hours one afternoon laughing over all pronouncing differently. In the end they surrendered to Kevin's likely accurate version, but there were long lengths of goofy attempts that seemed, at the time, to go on for years.

There’s a bookmark on a specific page and passage within highlighted. “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” 

She hangs up her coat and turns the store's lights up, taking her extra time to do a serene dusting of the shelves. Before she knows it, the clock’s already quick to turn eight and she unlocks the door to Burke Family Books with a warm grin.


End file.
